Habituation
by Stonecreek
Summary: Marauders era. As his life at Hogwarts draws to a close, James is struck by just how different he is now than who he used to be. He's not at all sure he likes this version of himself, and is looking for someone to blame. Dumbledore, as is his wont, might have the answer if you sift through the quirks. More an introspective piece from James' POV about the Marauders and himself.
**A.N. –** My first Marauders-era fic. This is from James' POV. I don't own Harry Potter; it's J.K. Rowling's brainchild and companies too numerous to list have a hand in it now. I don't profit from this except for whatever reviews you lot grace me with.

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The Great Hall is boisterous with students excited to see the end of another year of school. The Hogwarts Express beckons, and all that's left is for the House Cup to be awarded. I notice all of it, but it's like a fast-moving Quiddich player to me – a brightly colored blur. I'm a few scant hours from leaving this institution of knowledge for a career outside, and all I can muster up is vague interest in whatever my future might hold.

School is supposed to be a time to open up your eyes and learn – not just what the professors lecture about, but what the halls whisper to you about life and what your classmates drill into you through prolonged exposure. I thought I had learned. I prided myself (to arrogance, some would say) a sharp person in disciplines both academic and otherwise. The aloofness displayed in class and out was because I could read people well. The professor's timbre of voice meant whether I had to pay attention or not. A flicker of emotion on a face told whether I had pushed a prank too far.

Slowly, this library of personal tells I'd acquired grew muddied. Even more slowly, I took notice of this inadequacy.

Sirius, the most expressive of our lot, my best of best friends, became murky to me. Peter, ever a puzzle to figure out, seemed to be missing more pieces than usual. Remus, who's always come to me for someone to confide in before, grew stilted in simple conversation around me. And Lily, who was a veritable fireball at the center of my life, even her warmth found it hard to permeate the malaise I'd unknowingly drawn up around myself.

The grand old school had lost its luster. My friendships followed suit.

School can, indeed, open your eyes, but so too can it deaden your soul.

The only question left was: when did I stop truly observing everything around me and start growing so accustomed to it all? Had my view been so darkened as to not take in what once came naturally? I was blinded, and crippled by doldrums of daily life, but that still was no excuse.

Peter was more withdrawn, not like I was, for a reason. Always the hanger-on, he seemed to have his claws in less deep than usual (not that any of us minded).

Sirius' jokes grew more morbid by the day, the laughs received in returned more strained. The ever-present light in the trickster's eyes was more a steely glint when he thought no one was looking.

Remus, perpetually tense due to the nature of his condition, seemed only to relex marginally around Sirius, maybe Lily. Too polite, too much of a good friend to tell me that I was a cause to his stiff shoulders and hunched disposition.

Lily, the miraculous glue that held our ragtag band of Marauders together, paid me more attention than any of them, and for that I loved her. Little did I know (at the time) that her mother hen instinct was going full-bore, and she was as much worried about my well-being as being besotted.

I let these things pass without taking action when those around me needed me, when they were afflicted by turmoil far worse than my own trumped-up internal strife. And only now, at the last supper I will ever partake in at Hogwarts, does the finality come crashing in.

Have I become so blind as to not be aware of what mattered – matters! – most in my life? Am I so egotistical that my worldview became my world? This venerable school, which had become a home to me, and the friends made here, which was my family in all but blood – had these most precious facets of my makeup become so commonplace in my eyes that I started not to care?

Dumbledore looked over the assembled student body as he stood for the end of term speech. Students stilled as the conferring of the House Cup drew near. And I kept my head down as the old wizard's gaze sought mine before he began speaking.

"Welcome to another year-end feast. It has been a tumultuous year, to say the least…" I watched his eyes find the other Marauders, who looked embarrassed (Remus, Lily) or indignant (Sirius, Peter). "For those of you who shall return to these halls next school year, pay heed. And for those whose time at Hogwarts has come to an end, I am sorry I did not address this much sooner."

The quiet murmurs that usually accompany a Dumbledore speech trailed off. I perked my ears slightly but did not look up at the old man to see what he was on about. A niggling voice in the very back of my mind said I needed to, that the Headmaster wanted me to, but staring resolutely at absolutely nothing took so much less out of me.

"The world outside these walls is unsettled," Dumbldore continued. Within these walls, you have a home away from home. But, presented with the same surroundings for seven years, even the sanctuary of Hogwarts can feel like its walls are closing in. Even the brightest among us," and here, for the second time, the bespectacled gaze of Albus Dumbledore drifted over mine. I looked up, "can see themselves, and the wonders of the wizarding word, dim." He paused, heavily. I could not look away.

"For those of you I've let slip through the cracks, I apologize. For those of you returning, I urge you to find something to revel in, whether it be here or elsewhere. And, all of you, I implore you to make the most of your time here. Because time, like emotions and other intangibles, is ever-shifting, fleeting, and – when one can come to grasp it – just as essential as air but infinitely harder to hold onto. May you, through your holidays, let you grip on this place slacken just enough that it may find purchase in something else. Find what drives you; ensure your future is what you want it to be instead of what it's expected to turn out as."

And Dumbledore sat back down, the wake of stunned silence at hearing the age's greatest wizard apologize so forthrightly broke. For once, it appeared the pedestal his charges placed him on seemed perhaps in error. Dumbledore smiled a tired, tight grin as dessert replaced the dinner course plates, and discourse replaced the whispered conversations.

My appetite had fled. Once caught in the Headmaster's scrutiny, it was like buckets of ice water being dumped down my robes. The shock to the soul at the words seemingly tailored for my ears alone ('But that couldn't be,' my rational side scolded) permeated through the funk that had become my existence.

It did not have to be this way. It never should have gotten to be this way.

I leaned back in my chair, away from the pastries on the table, and craned my neck up to look at the enchanted ceiling. An early summer sky, resplendent with sunshine, greeted me. This might be the last time I witness this. It was truly a great feat of spellcasting, and for the better part of my time here I had taken that for granted. And it was merely the most minor of the multitudes that had occurred with.

Was that truly the untaught, unwanted, but inescapable lesson of this place? That, while we were educated in how to wield our innate gift, it was blinding us to basic life lessons that magic cannot impart? Dumbledore had his view, and had made it known. Perhaps he had struggled like I had with that question. Looking back at Dumbledore only barely enjoying his pie, maybe he still does.

The answer I sought would not be found in thousand-yard stares though thick stone walls. I swiveled on the bench and caught Peter's eyes. A small shrug was all I got in return. I looked across the long Gryffindor table and saw Remus deeper in contemplation than he was in his goblet. No help there. Sirius was sat next to me, but as I turned my head to his I saw the joke forming on his lips by the twinkle in his eyes. I forestalled whatever quip was coming and made to find one last person.

It only half-registered that I'd subconsciously read Sirius' intent and acted like the old me as I searched out Lily. She was hunched in on herself, surrounded by housemates and yet on an island by her lonesome. Beautiful as ever, yet I'm sure inside Lily was beating herself black and blue and doing her best not to let it show to the rest.

I had been there. I had fought that. And, together, we could make it better again.

I scooted out from the table and stepped up behind Lily. Gently, I bent down and embraced her around her shoulders, her flame hair tickling my chin. I heard the hitching intake of breath and ghosted a breath across her ear.

"I know, I know, my love. You are not alone. And you never will be." I tightened my grip and let my cheek come to rest against hers. The whole of Gryffindor was gawking, but this was one thing I _chose_ not to notice. Lily was off in her own world right now, and I had my arms around mine.

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 **A.N. –** Habituation: the decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations.


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